Now, Now

Daphne to Her Father, God of Rivers

13 Daphne to Her Father, God of Rivers After the sculpture Apollo and Daphne (based on Ovid’s Metamorphoses), Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Galleria Borghese, Rome You ask for news at the end of my first season: I used to fear the hot breath of the god, now only fire, mirrors. It is nearly complete, my hands a green immolation, my mouth a knot hole —No—No. An owl roosts at the crook of my neck. A kind of music, the shrieks of small, expiring things. The sun provides; I neither chew nor swallow. My skin is black as Africa. What are the days? Hours fall. I mark their alluvial traces. Spring is taking me from inside. Blossoms, pale, scentless, cover my rocky bed. I am thirsty. Come with your floods and know me completely. Erase the print of his sandal behind me. ...